NFL will have trouble legislating "N-word"

The Associated Press

NFL comissioner Roger Goodell looks at artificial snow falls on stage as he speaks at a news conference Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. The Seattle Seahawks are scheduled to play the Denver Broncos in the NFL Super Bowl XLVIII football game on Sunday, Feb. 2, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

NFL comissioner Roger Goodell looks at artificial snow falls on stage as he speaks at a news conference Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. The Seattle Seahawks are scheduled to play the Denver Broncos in the NFL Super Bowl XLVIII football game on Sunday, Feb. 2, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) (The Associated Press)

The NFL wants each of its beds made up with hospital corners. All neat and tidy. So sanitary, a surgeon can operate on its yards.

But there are times it takes things too far, and this is one of those times. The proposal to penalize players for using the “N-word” or other racial and homophobic slurs during games seems to extend beyond the jurisdiction of The League’s detectives.

I don’t know what it’s like to be black. I’ve never been black. I went to school with blacks, interacted with blacks, worked with blacks and have friends who are black. But I don’t know what it’s like to be a person of color anymore than I know what it’s like to be blind.

Many blacks use the “N-word” on themselves all the time. Where I grew up, in Little Italy, we often referred to ourselves by the “W-word.” It was “W-Town” then, not Little Italy. It’s just who we Italians were. It was our business, and so is the use of the “N-word” among blacks. It is not our job to enforce it.

“What I do with my black friends is not up to white America to dictate to me,” said Charles Barkley, who is black, to ESPN columnist Jason Whitlock, who also is black.

Sir Charles, who is right very often, is right again.

But with this, the NFL, which does not have a black owner, once again is attempting to tenderize a tough game played by hardened men who spend their days in a violent atmosphere most of us haven’t known or will ever know. The League is doing its very best to shave the 5 o’clock shadow off of football’s machismo, but this time it appears to be using the wrong white lather.

It’s almost impossible to believe its latest proposal is going to work, or how the rule possibly can be enforced. Nevertheless, the Competition Committee will take up the matter next week and, if approved, will be law if three-quarters of the owners pass it in their March meetings.

It could mean that, if an official hears slurring, a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty flag could be thrown.

Best of luck. This, from an august body that doesn’t find the “R-word,” its Washington franchise’s nickname, racially offensive, which it absolutely is.

As Herman Edwards recently noted, it’s up to blacks -- who comprise 70 percent of NFL rosters -- to clean it up themselves. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, maybe they won’t want to, but as Edwards added, you don’t need a rule to do it.

There’s just too much police work involved now. NFL officials have enough trouble trying to do what they’re paid to do. They do throw flags for improper language (mostly aimed at them), but they can’t begin to enforce this every time they hear what, to many players, has become as much a part of everyday speech as hello and goodbye.

On the field and on the sidelines, at most levels, football is a battle zone without rifles and bullets. When I was in Army basic training, if the Department of Defense outlawed the use of “F-bombs,” my drill sergeant would have been speechless.

Packers linebacker Clay Mathews, who is white, has been all over sports radio the past week discussing this latest proposal on New York’s WFAN and “The Dan Patrick Show.”

“I think it’s used as a term of endearment between players,” he said of the “N-Word.”

He thinks, of course. He cannot know.

“I think it’s so much a part of pop culture in general that it’s going to be very hard to eliminate from the game. I think it’s more something that should come from the locker room, organization and team leaders to remove it if they see fit. This is an emotional game played by tough men who obviously are a little crazy in doing so.”

In a perfect world, one in which we do not reside, it wouldn’t be cause for concern. It would be great for it all to cease. But I can’t see the NFL stopping it any more than it can a high tide.

As Mathews said: “Where does it start? Where does it stop?”

Commissioner Roger Goodell and his pals seem bent on trying to get total control a game that, by its very nature, cannot and never will be totally controlled.